


Face the Music

by operacricket



Series: Misadventures and Metamours [3]
Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, First Meetings, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia is Still a Witcher, Jaskier | Dandelion is a Mess, M/M, Meet-Cute, Musician Jaskier | Dandelion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:46:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22564222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/operacricket/pseuds/operacricket
Summary: Jaskier's last shot at "making it" has brought him perilously close to winding up dead. The Witcher hired to fix it all just might save more than just his life.Stand-alone meet-cute.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Misadventures and Metamours [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1618633
Comments: 69
Kudos: 587





	1. Meet Cute

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to @Zira666 for asking for backstory and ruining several days of sleep while I wrote this in one go. 
> 
> You don't need to have read the other fics in this universe or ship Jaskier/Geralt/Yennefer to enjoy this one (although, in this house, we stan strong female characters with rich backstories). 
> 
> For those who have read Missing You and Miracle, and might be confused, I should clarify: Despite what he likes to pretend, Jaskier is *not* a starving artist. He is a trust fund baby and (at times) relatively successful musician. He is, however, a drama queen and terrible with money.

Geralt's skin itched as he was let into the building, security looking him over suspiciously. He didn't want to be here any more than they wanted him to be, and yet.

They looked at his swords, at his eyes. Reluctantly, they gave him a security badge that he jammed in a pocket.

Someone had paid a lot of money and called in a lot of favors for him to be there, so they would all just have to live with it. 

The performing arts complex was a maze of halls and venues, and he wondered how anyone expected him to keep the prissy singer he’d been hired to bodyguard safe from anything, much less monsters that could be teeming in the walls. 

Only the thin bond of a debt that needed repaying kept him following the signs for the singer’s tour across a loading dock and into a poorly-lit backstage hallway. 

He heard raised voices when he was barely through the door into the hall, and the closer he got, the more certain he was that he was not going to enjoy this job. 

"You can stop treating me like a child!" a young, clear voice carried to him.

"Well, when you have the self- preservation instincts of one-!"

Oh yes, this was going to be a great time. 

"You're the one who pressured me into this goddamn tour! The tickets are sold. People are here. I'm not just going to call it off."

"People are dying, Jaskier."

"Why are you yelling at me like that's my fault?"

Geralt rounded a corner and saw two security guards standing outside a heavy wooden door.

They nodded to him warily, clearly eager to see him gone, but as most people did, they tolerated a Witcher's presence when their own were dying.

"This him?" he asked, jerking his chin at the closed door. The shouting continued on the other side.

One of the men nodded back, expression pinched.

"Who's in there with him?"

"Manager," he answered. "I wouldn't hold my breath waiting on them. Been at it for a while."

Geralt stepped past the security and pounded on the door.

The shouting stopped, which was all the permission he needed to push through. 

The room on the other side was nicer than his apartment, a soft leather couch and clean carpet making for a comfortable, inviting space, with a full bathroom tiled expensively in black. If not for the wall of mirrors and vanity lighting, it would have felt like a small studio instead of a dressing room. 

An older gentleman, fatherly, with graying hair and a suit that even Geralt could tell had gone out of style stood in front of the door and beyond him, braced behind a grand piano, face red and angry, was the young singer, Jaskier.

He smiled, sharp and brittle, and turned clear blue eyes--eyes that spot of being at the end of his rope--on his manager. “There. See? I’m perfectly safe. Unless you want to impugn the very scary Witcher’s ability to do his job?”

His manager ground his teeth and let out a heavy breath. He put on a tight smile and turned to Geralt, holding out a hand. “Thank you for coming. I’m Eoin Joseph, Julian’s manager.”

Geralt nodded to him without shaking his hand.

“He’s just going,” the singer ground out, glaring at Joseph. The man looked like he wanted to object, but he added, “I have to get ready. The show is starting soon.”

Joseph eventually nodded and excused himself from the room. He looked at Geralt expectantly, but Geralt didn’t follow, pushing the door closed behind him and turning back to the singer, who’d dropped down at the piano and was scrubbing at his eyes.

He managed a smile for Geralt when he stepped over to him, but the Witcher could smell the salt from unshed tears. 

“He means well,” he said. “But I’m not going to call off the tour.”

“It would be safer.”

“For whom? Whatever it is, it’s only after me so far, which means it’s coming whether I’m on stage or in my apartment.”

“For the people getting killed protecting you.”

The singer blanched but didn’t look away. “I told them to run. I didn’t want that to happen.”

“If they’d run, you’d be dead.”

“If you’re trying to scare me into not performing, it’s not going to work.”

“Hm.” Geralt watched him. After a moment of holding a staring contest with a Witcher, Jaskier looked down at the piano, picking out a few notes listlessly.

“You’re going to figure out what’s doing this, right?”

“I'll try. Tell me what happened.”

“A monster attacked me at one of my shows. I’m not sure what else you want me to say.”

“Describe it.”

Jaskier sighed heavily, like he’d been over this a hundred times. He probably had. “I thought I was hearing things at first. Buzzing, crawling in the walls. Smelling things too, like burnt plastic and rotten garbage.” His nose wrinkled at the memory. “One night, I was sure something was following me and I--uh. I freaked out on my security.” He flushed. “Cintra, my label, sent me Mousesack to see if it was magic.”

“Mm.”

“And then the thing attacked me during a show. Big, winged... thing with scales and fangs and-- I tried to get away, but it just kept following me. Security was barely slowing it down. When someone eventually blasted its head off, it was like it turned to smoke. That’s when Mousesack said we needed a Witcher.”

Only his belief that Mousesack would know a spell from a creature stopped him from walking out the door. It certainly shortened the list of what it could be. 

He continued through his questions, pushing his luck while he was getting good answers. “Why now?”

“Well, it’s the first time I’ve gone out in public for over a year, so it could be that.” He snorted and played a little tune on the piano. “Kind of ironic, really. The tour that’s supposed to prove I’m alive is going to get me killed.”

“Anyone who wouldn’t want you to perform?”

“Not to my knowledge,” Jaskier answered, pushing back from the piano and crossing away from Geralt to the mirror and the vanity. “Everyone’s been pretty insistent that I start singing again. Besides. It’s a monster, not a curse. Isn’t that what Mousesack said? Why he sent me you?”

He kept an eye on Geralt in the mirror while he started setting out a line of pots and glitters. 

“In my experience, people tend to be the worst monsters,” Geralt said. “And from what it sounds like, it only attacks you unless other people try to stop it. That’s targeted. Do you have anyone who would wish you harm? Rivals? Scorned lovers?”

“I treat my lovers very well, I’ll have you know,” he said, huffily. “No scorning here. I can get you a list, though. I wrote one out for Mousesack when he asked the same question. As far as rivals, though, I don’t know. I haven’t written anything new--nothing good--in almost two years, so I can’t imagine who would be concerned enough to try to kill me.” He turned around to meet Geralt’s eyes straight on. “The tour hasn’t sold well. There’s no need to kill me when I’m just going to fade into fucking obscurity when it’s over.”

He seemed to take a moment to compose himself and then turned back to the mirror. “Now if you’ll excuse me, the people who bothered to come see me deserve a decent show. I need to get ready.”

Geralt leaned himself against the wall by the piano and folded his arms. He’d taken this job, and that meant the singer was his responsibility. If the last time was any indication, the creature would come for him in the next few hours.

Jaskier watched him for another moment before turning back to the mirror. “Suit yourself.”

He started on his makeup, using a fine brush to paint color around his eyes. Despite the confident, familiar motions and steady hands, Geralt could see tension in the man's shoulders and nervous energy in the way he shifted from foot to foot.

Blues, purples and silvers slowly turned into a galaxy stretching half his face, temple to temple and down onto his cheeks. He kept pausing, brush lifting away from his skin and mouth opening as if he was going to say something, but he didn't, returning silently to his work. 

It took a long time, longer than Geralt spent getting ready for battle, and after a while, Jaskier said, “You’re welcome to sit. There’s water in the fridge.” He gestured vaguely towards the couch and the minibar. “Don’t get me wrong. I love the way you just… stand in the corner and brood, but I’ll be at this a while.” 

Gerald didn't move, and Jaskier didn't push.

Watching the brushes sweep and the colors blossom was almost meditative. Jaskier didn’t seem bothered by being fixed with a Witcher’s gaze, so Geralt didn’t bother to look away. 

When he leaned back to admire his work, grey-blue eyes glittering in the colorful mask, Geralt assumed he was finished and they would finally be heading to the stage. 

Instead, he turned to a closet by the mirror and started pulling out clothes, tossing one item after another out on the counter, soft-looking fabrics all in the same palette as what he’d just spent an hour painting. 

Without even glancing at Geralt, he undid the buttons on his shirt and tossed it aside, revealing a leanly-muscled chest with love bites kissed into his ribs and a handprint just above his waistband. Geralt pushed 'jealousy' up on the list of potential causes for the boy’s current plight. With absolutely no hint at modesty, Jaskier slid his pants off as well, glancing at himself in the mirror before dressing again in tight, dark jeans that he had to squirm to get up. He didn't acknowledge Geralt's presence, but he smelled painfully aware of it. Half-clothed, he sorted through the items in front of him and selected a blue silk shirt that caught the light with silver threads. Geralt wasn't sure what the purpose of the others were.

"You finished?"

"Almost, don't be impatient," Jaskier answered, an odd strain in his voice. He stepped back over to the piano, past Geralt's spot against the wall, and plucked a few notes, matching them with his voice.

It was a warm, rich sound, and Geralt felt like he’d heard it before. He hadn’t listened to music much by choice in the last century, but that didn’t mean that he hadn’t heard any, not with the creep of technology and noise invading every part of daily life. 

Jaskier tapped another key and then continued singing unaccompanied, running through a few vocal exercises and short snippets of song while he collected silver jewelry from a plate on the piano’s surface. He threaded droplets through his ears and slid bangles onto his wrists. His voice became ornamental almost in time with the ornamenting of his body. 

Finally, he tapped his hands on the black enamel in front of him and shot a grin towards Geralt. “All right, Strong and Silent Type. Let’s get this show on the road.”

Being at the concert, even backstage, was not something he'd ever enjoy doing. It was too loud to pick out the source of individual sounds, and it smelled like desperation and arousal. The wave of noise that met the musician’s entrance made Geralt wonder what "hasn't sold well" really meant, but it wasn't his job to save the musician's career. It was his job to save his life.

Jaskier’s music was… less unpleasant than he’d been expecting. He’d found, as time went on, that the discordant noise favored by the majority of the population was less and less to his taste. The young musician had a clear, steady voice and a strong sense of melody and rhythm. His tone stayed upbeat and jovial while he sang, inviting the audience into some private joke, telling them a story and doing it with a smile that could be heard in his voice. 

The songs themselves were mostly trite love songs, but Geralt was pretty sure he recognized a few of them, overheard on the radio or playing in seedy bars. 

He folded his arms and listened, letting the sound wash over him and trying to hear past the roar for anything out of place. 

Jaskier was out of breath and joyful, a far cry from the frustrated helplessness he’d been exhibiting when Geralt had first seen him. Geralt was almost enjoying himself when he heard the noise.

His eyes snapped open, head tilting to the side to catch it again. A clicking, just under the pulse of the music. He grabbed his sword and walked out onstage. 

For a moment, everything stopped, the eyes of the people crowded around the stage shifting to him and the band halting in their accompaniment. 

And then the scaled creature dropped from the grid, lunging for Jaskier, and a single scream rose up from the audience to fill the theater. 

Geralt grabbed the singer by the back of the shirt, yanking him away and feeling the silky material rip in his hand. 

The sword connected with the beast--a worker beast, a low-level pest that implied an infestation of a thousand more, but more importantly implied a queen--and it shattered into smoke that glowed in the stage light. It should have had company, but as his eyes scanned and ears strained, his medallion was still. 

Silence fell over the crowd and hung there.

Everyone stood frozen, staring at where the monster had been. Staring at Geralt and his sword. 

The moment stretched into discomfort before a voice like a siren song called, “Geralt of Rivia, everyone!” Jaskier gestured to him grandly. “The White Wolf.” 

A cheer rose up from the crowd along with thunderous applause.

Geralt looked out at the people. He was rarely thanked for what he did. He’d certainly never been applauded. 

“Take a bow, Geralt,” Jaskier said, with a crooked smile. His silk shirt was hanging from his shoulders, badly torn and covering little.

“I’m not doing that.”

Jaskier laughed brightly and turned to the audience. “All right, everyone, thank your Witcher so that he can run off the stage.”

Geralt turned to go amidst the roar of thanks, not interested in being made fun of, but Jaskier caught his hand, and when he turned to look back at him, he'd covered his microphone. The words were just for Geralt when he whispered, “Seriously. Thank you.”

“We have things to talk about.”

“Sounds like a good time. Right. I’ll just finish this up first, mm?” 

Jaskier turned back to the cheering crowd and rounded them into a chorus of some song that everyone seemed to know, one that spent a lot of time praising a man and his _talents,_ and Geralt let himself out back the way he’d come, relieved when he no longer had hundreds of eyes fixed on him.


	2. Valley of Plenty

Geralt frowned at the list Jaskier had given him. 

It was… long.

He was sitting across the table from Geralt, sipping a frozen drink through a straw, chin tipped up as though daring Geralt to say something. His hot pink top showed off his midriff and said Baby Slut, in sparkling purple letters.

It was a carefully crafted image of disinterest and defiance, a petulant “I don’t care what you think of me” as clear as if he’d shouted it.

He’d thought the musician had reacted too calmly to being informed that the monster was far from a fluke and that someone had sent it after him. Turns out he was just saving up the freak out for now instead. 

“You want to tell me that none of these people hold any negative feelings towards you?” Geralt asked, tapping the list with one finger. 

“None of them want me dead,” he answered. “I don’t know what you think I do to my lovers, Witcher. Heartbreak is one thing, but I don’t date murderers.” 

“Jealousy can make people do stupid things.”

“I was very clear with all of them. They knew about each other.”

“Were all of these at the same time?”

“No, of course not. There’s dozens of people on that list. That’s five years worth of people.”

Geralt would put the number closer to a hundred than a dozen, but he didn’t say that. The singer was clearly on edge, ready to be judged, and he had no interest in making him close off any more out of defensiveness. 

“What do the stars mean?”

“The stars are people I dated for longer than a few nights.”

“And were any of those at the same time?”

“Yes,” he answered, sitting forward in his chair. “But like I said, they all knew about each other. Most of them had partners of their own.”

Geralt wanted to ring his neck. “And those partners? Any chance they could want you dead for cuckolding them?"

“Seriously? Who uses the word cuckolding in conversation?” Jaskier asked in bafflement. “Besides. No such thing happened. All parties, at least to my knowledge, were aware or involved. I'm not responsible for policing my partners' other relationships, Witcher, but I don’t cheat.”

“You just sleep with anything that moves.”

“No,” Jaskier snapped. “I make connections. With lots of people. Some of those are completely physical, or are brief, or are, I’ll admit, under negotiated, but I loved almost everyone on that list, in some way or another.”

“You loved a hundred people in five years?”

“People are easy to love,” he answered, tipping his chin up. “I’ve never cheated. My partners know when I see other people, and I listen when they ask me not to. I’ve tried monogamy, and it’s not for me. It’s why Katerina and I didn’t work out,” he said, tapping her name at the top of the list. “We were together for six months, just the two of us. She broke up with me because she said I was miserable.”

Geralt sighed and bit his tongue against the desire to argue that the best intentions didn't always help when sex and emotions were involved. Instead, he said, “Give me something else, then. If you can’t think of anyone you dated who’d wish you ill, give me something else. Someone wants you dead, Jaskier.”

The words put a sour look on his face. “I know. I know!” He rubbed his face and then looked down at the list. “I hate thinking that any of them could have done that. But I don’t know who else to look at. I’m not releasing new music--everything I write is shit. Up until last month, I barely left my apartment!”

“Hmm.” Geralt stretched his neck, thinking. “I’ll take this and do some digging, then,” he said, folding up the list and getting to his feet. “Until then, you need to hold off on any more shows.”

“Not you too,” Jaskier groaned. “You’re as bad as Eoin. I’m not backing out of the tour.”

“I can’t babysit you and hunt down whoever’s doing this.”

“I don't need to be babysat. And I can’t just cancel my shows. Not after all this.”

Geralt leaned forward over the table, bracing his hands and looming. “Cancel them, Jaskier.”

“No,” he answered, meeting Geralt glare for glare. 

He wasn’t afraid of him. 

Any sane person would reek of fear with a Witcher standing over them like this. And yet Jaskier just sat there and glared at him. 

“If my mother threatening to disown me for not going into politics didn’t stop me from singing, I’m damn well not going to let this.”

“I can’t protect you if you won’t listen.”

“Fine, then. Don’t.” Jaskier shrugged and looked away from him. 

Geralt was going to strangle him. What had he done to deserve this infuriating _child?_

He reminded himself once again of his promise. Of the debt. He just needed to finish this quickly, and then he could leave this idiot to make bad decisions on his own. 

“Get up.”

“Excuse me?”

“If you won’t go somewhere safe, you’re coming with me.”

“They still have fax machines?” Jaskier had said, entirely unhelpfully, while Geralt sent the list of names to a PI who would work for a small percentage of the contract's payout. He'd long since learned that he didn’t want to navigate the complexities of modern people hunting. Geralt grunted at him and shepherded Jaskier out of the office and back to the theater. People may have gotten harder to hunt in the modern era, but looking for signs of monsters never changed. 

For someone as flighty and hard to pin down as the musician, Jaskier seemed perfectly content to follow Geralt around and chat his ear off about whatever happened to cross his mind. 

He tuned in and out, listening to the man’s life story and hmming along when he found a topic interesting enough to encourage. When he wasn’t talking he was humming or pondering rhyme schemes, and somehow, Geralt found it… pleasant. Annoying, but easy to listen to.

"I feel like every theater has a story about a ghost, you know? Things being moved, footsteps in the dark, visions of weeping ladies." Jaskier tapped his fingers idly on the metal railings as he trailed after Geralt through the grid above the stage. "Do you ever have to deal theater ghosts?"

"That's not how ghosts work."

"Really? How do they work, then?"

"They’re either made up, or they’re monsters. If they’re monsters, I kill them."

"Well that makes a terrible story."

"Reality usually does."

"How depressing." 

He didn't dwell on it, just danced on to the next subject, asking about Geralt's hunts and then extrapolating entirely on his own with very little encouragement.

He knew a lot of stories about him, apparently, things he'd found on the internet about Geralt’s mistakes and triumphs. Mostly mistakes. He didn’t shy away from the worst stories--and of course it was always the worst stories that everyone remembered--but neither did he seem to believe them. He snorted dismissively at what people thought of Witchers, seeing shrewdly to the truth underneath and then moving on, quick as ever, to fanciful tales that made Geralt sound like a hero or the people who'd spread the tales sound like idiots. 

He had a crooked way of looking at the world that Geralt found baffling and oddly hopeful.

His antics resulted in a lot of eye rolling and once or twice a dive to catch him by the back of the neck before his distraction could get the best of him, but for all his derision about the liberties Jaskier took with the stories, he couldn’t help a general wish that he could see the world a little more as the singer did.

The monster hadn't shown. An entire night, the entire concert, and no sign of the scaled beasts or their puppeteer. 

Geralt knew he'd get tired of these songs quickly and hoped it wouldn't come to that. If he didn't fix this, he would need to follow the singer as he moved on to the next stop on the tour, and the thought made him scowl and itch to just be done with it.

If the thing would just show itself, he could try to track it back to its master, but it seemed like tonight wouldn't be the night.

“All right, everyone, settle down,” Jaskier called gleefully to his audience. “It’s been a marvelous night. You all have been lovely, and for once, nothing’s tried to eat me.”

Geralt heard someone in the crowd scream, “I’d eat you!” and rolled his eyes. 

“I have one more song for you all! Please let me know if you like it.” 

Geralt watched on the monitor as he stole a guitar from his band and strummed a tune that had the rest of the musicians dropping out and watching him quizzically. 

“When a humble bard  
Graced a ride along  
With Geralt of Rivia  
Along came this song...”

The audience fell silent. They didn't know this one. 

Geralt realized, however, that he did, that Jaskier had been humming it all afternoon.

The room stood, just listening to the bell of Jaskier’s voice and the unfamiliar melody. He narrated a story, funny and inaccurate, of Geralt’s time onstage the night before and the hunt this morning. Even having never heard the words before, he was certain he would be hearing them all night, that he could repeat it back line for line. And then it came to a lilting chorus.

_Toss a coin to your Witcher,  
O’ Valley of Plenty, o’ valley of plenty._

The music was playful and beautiful, Jaskier’s voice working its way into the ear until it had made a home there and nothing else could be heard. 

_Toss a coin to your Witcher..._

By the second chorus, the crowd was singing as well. They repeated several times, growing louder, and finally Jaskier strummed and sang a last soaring “oh!” He shouted his thanks over the cheering and bowed his way out. His face split into a grin when his eyes caught on Geralt’s. 

“Did you hear that?” he asked excitedly. 

“Mm.”

The crowd was cheering for him to go back out, same as they’d done the night before. He’d never understood the strange tradition, demanding the performers leave and then return, but Geralt knew well enough to nod Jaskier back onstage when he seemed too excited to remember. 

He tripped back out front, just barely keeping himself from planting onto his face. “Yes, yes, encore! What shall I sing?”

“Toss a coin!” someone shouted. “Sing it again.” 

“Sing it again!” someone else joined in. A hundred people had their cellphones out. “Sing it again,” the crowd chanted. 

“I am your humble servant,” Jaskier answered with a flourishing bow. He turned to his band apologetically, but when he called out the first line, they played along, picking it up quickly from just a single listen.

_O’ Valley of Plenty, o’ valley of plenty..._

He stretched the repeat longer this time, the whole building humming with it, a deep vibration that settled into the bones and stuck. And then, with thunderous applause, he tumbled back off the stage and launched himself at Geralt, who caught hold of him and held him still as he bounced on his heels and shook with excitement.

“Did you hear?” he asked, sweaty and trembling and bright-eyed. “I wrote a new song. I wrote a song and they liked it! _A new fucking song_ and they wanted to hear it again.”

“I’m pretty sure the whole world heard,” Geralt agreed, not sure what to do with the musician, who seemed to be coming apart at the seams.

“They did, didn’t they?” 

“Mm, come on.” He got hold of Jaskier, a hand on each shoulder to keep him steady and focused on the return to his dressing room. 

The shaking was noticeable under his hands, growing uncontrollable as they left the swell of sound and energy of the stage behind.

He was coming down hard, the adrenaline crashing, and the mix of frantic emotions was turning to arousal and sadness and pain in Geralt’s nose. 

“Do you want me to call someone?” he asked, thinking of the list of names and trying to remember if Jaskier had mentioned having any partners currently. He ushered him into the dressing room, looking him over to be sure nothing had actually happened that needed fixing.

“No, I--” Jaskier, stumbled again when Geralt let go of his arms. “I’m fine. I’m fine. I just need to shower and then I’ll--” he looked a little lost. 

“Do you always get like this after a show?”

“After a good one,” he answered, eyes closing briefly and brow furrowing with determination. He made a concerted effort to pull himself together and was almost convincing when he looked back at Geralt and said, “Thank you, Geralt. For looking out for me. I’ll be fine.” 

He tripped backwards a step and disappeared into the bathroom.


	3. Mess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaskier and Geralt (mostly Geralt) fight some monsters and have a Moment.

_Toss a Coin to Your Witcher_ spread like wildfire.

For a song performed unannounced at a poorly attended concert, it was suddenly everywhere.

When he went home to pack, he heard it playing from the nearby apartments, spilling out the window as he double-checked the lock on Roach’s handlebars and covered her with a tarp for his extended absence. He heard people humming it when, bag slung over his shoulder, he walked downtown to meet the tour bus. 

He scowled at people who looked at him too closely on the street. Having grown used to being ignored and cast aside, the focus, the way people hummed a bit when they noticed him was unnerving to say the least. 

He still hadn’t figured out who was summoning creatures, and Jaskier was loading up and moving on to the next city, so Geralt did what he had to do and moved with him. 

For some reason, Jaskier found his presence on the bus highly amusing, taking the opportunity of trapped proximity to prod him for entertainment. 

“Come on, surely you can see the humor in it,” he all but sang, perched on a couch with his guitar on his lap, restlessly plucking at the strings.

Geralt raised his eyebrows at him. 

“This place is so… me,” he nodded around to the jewel tones of the surfaces, still bright despite the age showing on the bus and the faded sharpie scribbles of lyrics. “And you’re so… you. Grr.” He made a mocking sort of growling face. 

Geralt frowned at him, half rising out of his seat at the little table where he’d spread out his weapons. 

Jaskier yelped and put his hands up in surrender, a loud twang on the guitar as he moved, and Geralt dropped back down with a smirk. 

“Well, that’s just rude,” Jaskier complained before switching his attention to something else.

Grudgingly, Jaskier’s manager paid for Geralt to stay in the hotel with the rest of the tour. 

This apparently meant moving Jaskier from the suite he’d wanted to somewhere smaller with fewer windows. Geralt got the feeling it was a punishment. 

“If you won’t let me call this thing off, I’m moving you to where someone can keep an eye on you.”

Snorting at the singer’s pouting face, Geralt disappeared into his room and closed the door between them, creating blessed silence of being on his own after a day of people surrounding him. Jaskier was next door and he could count on his senses and medallion to wake him if anything happened in the night.

What woke him instead was a pounding on the door, loud and insistent. 

He knew who it was before tugging it open. 

“What?”

Jaskier pushed past into his room without asking, and Geralt lamented again that he wasn’t scared of him. “So, you know how Toss a Coin is trending?”

Geralt just looked at him, wondering why he expected him to know what any of that meant.

“Toss a Coin is trending,” he clarified, pointlessly. “Anyway, I was reading through tweets, and it looks like people are using it as a hashtag for anything that needs a Witcher. They’ve even got #TossACoin Gofundmes started.”

“Jaskier. Get to the point.”

“There’s apparently a wraith problem really close to here? They killed a girl a few days ago.”

“There will always monsters, Jaskier,” Geralt said. He couldn’t deal with every wraith he walked past, as much as he wanted to. As much as _‘killed a girl’_ made it sound like he should. 

“Come on, we should go investigate it.”

And that struck a chord.

“We?”

“Of course, we. I’m not letting you leave me here.”

“Even if I was going after these wraith--which I’m not--you wouldn’t be coming with me. There’s nothing you can do except get injured, and I’ve been hired to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“That’s offensive. Come on, Geralt, I’ve never been so inspired. Please. If one song can get people actually asking for help, imagine what I could do with an album?”

“You are not getting yourself killed for an album,” Geralt said over the top of him, since Jaskier wasn’t even pausing for breath.

“I could completely change the way people think--Of course not. Couldn’t write an album if I died. I know you won’t let anything kill me.”

“Because I won’t let you anywhere near it.”

“I’ll follow you whether you “let” me come or not,” he said, crossing his arms.

“I’m not going.”

“It’s _killing_ people.”

“But not you.”

“What does it even fucking matter if you save my life if I’m never able to write a song like that again?”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“ _I’m not stupid!_ ” Jaskier shouted. “I’m not stupid. I’m a washed up, has-been singer at barely twenty five. I’ve been writing crappy love songs for two years, and someone that I wrote those for is trying to kill me. Forgive me for jumping at the first chance to change that. Forgive me for wanting something good to come out of this shit. I know what I’m asking, so don’t call me stupid.”

They stood staring at each other for a long moment, silence stretching after Jaskier’s last words.

“You have to stay outside the cemetery, got it?” He tried not to be affected by the way Jaskier lit up. 

“You’ll do it?”

“If you promise to stay outside of the cemetery. Wraith are fast and I can’t promise I can stop it in time if you get too close.”

“Yes, sir, Witcher, sir.”

Jaskier strolled right into the cemetery. Of course he did. 

Geralt killed the wraith, grateful it was just the one, and knocked the singer on his ass in the grave dirt. 

“I told you to wait outside.”

Jaskier panted up at him, one eye squinted shut in pain. “You didn’t really think I would.” He stretched out a hand. “Help me up, you brute.”

Geralt walked past him. 

Jaskier scrambled up, trailing after Geralt with noisy footsteps and offended objections, still trying to brush the mud off his clothes by the time they made it back to the hotel. 

“Jaskier!” 

The voice snapped across the empty lobby, and Jaskier swore under his breath as his manager shoved to his feet and came to corner him. 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” 

Geralt blinked at him and walked past, having no interest in being yelled at by the old man. 

Jaskier apparently felt much the same way. 

“He was dealing with monsters. I was writing songs. Now we’re both going to bed.” He tried to head for the elevators, but Eoin grabbed his arm, holding him back gently but firmly. 

“Jaskier, you can’t run around in the middle of the night. There's something trying to kill you. You have a show tomorrow. A show you insisted on.”

“And so I’d like to go to bed,” Jaskier pointed out.

“You’ve got to stop being so damned reckless!” This one was shouted, and he was still holding onto Jaskier. “It’s like you’re trying to get yourself killed. Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

“I’m not--”

“You won’t cancel the tour, you turn down upgraded security, you go running off in the night to chase down ghosts--”

For some unknown reason, Geralt couldn’t just continue up to his room and let them fight it out. He turned back and removed the man’s hand from Jaskier’s arm, where it had started to grip tighter in Jaskier’s struggle to tug away. 

“It’s under control,” Geralt told him, though he wasn’t certain that was the truth. “You can leave it be.”

The song about the wraith was haunting and beautiful, a tragic story of death that couldn’t let go and souls grasping, grasping, grasping.

Jaskier’s shows started selling out. Crowds gathered for him even though twice more, Geralt had to kill winged hive-like creatures to save Jaskier’s skin. Even though they started showing up in twos and threes on the streets and in the lobbies of hotels.

The beasts seemed eager to self-destruct and wouldn’t retreat or stop pursuing Jaskier until they were dead, which only frustrated Geralt’s attempts to track them to a source. They’d taken the presence of an adversary as a cue to ramp up their attacks, but they were too small, too mindless to be of any use to him.

It was aggravating. 

Jaskier was losing sleep, looking tight around the eyes, and that was aggravating too. 

After a few weeks, traveling had settled into a comfortable routine, and if they slipped away sometimes to look for trouble, he could excuse it as restlessness from being stuck on a bus all day. 

"Do you suppose it's possible that there is no one sending them after me? That I just annoyed them into attacking? Like poking a hornet's nest."

"If anyone could, it would be you," Geralt answered without looking from the lake they were walking beside. Supposedly, there were Drowners in it.

"Excuse you, I am a delight."

Geralt snorted.

"Dick."

Jaskier followed him around the lake until the hunt began to seem less thrilling and more tedious, at which point he started complaining. 

He was still complaining when the fighting started, still complaining when he ended up knee deep in muck retrieving Geralt’s sword while the Witcher struggled bodily with them. And he was especially complaining when he was knocked off his feet, barely stopped from going under by a killing blow that spattered him with Drowner guts. 

“Oh, this is disgusting. Is this why you’re always so disgusting?” 

Geralt shoved him back into the lake to shut him up, confident that he'd gotten all of them and the danger was past. 

“You are a horrible person,” Jaskier sputtered when he surfaced again. 

“Hmm,” Geralt agreed with a smile and led the way back to the hotel, glad they hadn’t walked far to get to the park. 

Jaskier tried to ring out his clothes as they walked. “Are Drowners always so wet?” 

He didn't dignify that with a response. 

“Why can’t monsters ever be in comfy places, like the beach or a sunny meadow?”

They were walking past the hotel pool, heading for the side door, when Jaskier reached over and pushed his shoulder. Tall as the musician was, he wasn’t bulky enough to move a Witcher. Still, the clean water was appealing in his sticky, muck-laden state; Geraly allowed himself to be dumped into the pool.

He did grab Jaskier’s wrist on his way down, though, tugging him in after. 

They splashed in with a tidal wave of cold water, a shriek rising from Jaskier's throat. He laughed and choked, silt lifting off of him as he kicked away from Geralt, putting some space between them. He kicked muddy water in Geralt’s face, and Geralt dove after him, forcing him under.

There was blur of water and coughing and splashes before Jaskier panted breathlessly, “Wait, wait, I’m drowning.”

Geralt snorted, letting up and giving him a push towards the shallow end. 

Bouncing on one toe, Jaskier tugged off his shoes, throwing them towards the plastic pool furniture and then removing his jacket as well, though it didn’t fly quite so efficiently when he tossed it away. He stripped down to just his pants and, half naked, tread water easily, swimming away from Geralt with a brilliant smile. 

For ease of movement and no other reasons, Geralt did the same, ridding himself of his boots, weapons, and what little armor he’d bothered with that night. Even his pants had to go, thick protective material that was already deeply unpleasant against his skin. 

Jaskier’s eyes were a little wide when he ended with nothing but his underlayer, but instead of saying anything, the singer ducked under the water, running his hands through his hair to loosen the dirt from the lake, and when he came back up, any hint of a flush was gone. 

Not that Geralt couldn’t still smell it, under the scent of the chlorinated water. 

“You’ve got--” Jaskier pointed and then swam forward. “Here, let me.”

They were in deeper water now, deep enough that he had to put a hand on Geralt’s shoulder to hold himself up while he reached for a tangle in Geralt’s long hair and gently unwound the weed snagged there.

This close, he could smell it strongly, the arousal and the low scent of the singer himself, a scent Geralt had been immersed in for days. 

Almost without meaning to, he put a hand on Jaskier’s waist to steady him, keep him above the water. 

His eyes were wide, lips slightly parted as his attention turned from Geralt’s hair to his face.

He shouldn’t, but gods, he wanted to. 

The decision was taken out of his hands by a familiar sound just under the hum of the lights and the pool. 

Skittering. Clicking. 

“Fuck,” he said with feeling, shoving Jaskier away from the sound and diving for the far side of the pool where he’d left his swords. 

Jaskier inhaled a mouthful of water in surprise. Coughing and choking, he backed up the pool steps before falling back into the water when another appeared behind him, hemming him into the pool. 

With a grunt of frustration, Geralt finally got his sword out of the clinging, sodden, leather sheath and hauled himself up out of the water to move faster around the pool.

There were three of them, ringing the edge, keeping Jaskier treading water and while he tried to clear his lungs. 

One took to the air, heading for him, and Jaskier seized a panicked breath and dove deep into the water. 

Geralt beheaded the nearest one and lunged for the next. He caught it before it had a chance to take off, but the third was hovering out of his reach, poised to strike where Jaskier had disappeared, where bubbles were surfacing, and he let out a growl of frustration before jumping into the water as well. 

He reached the spot just as the singer came gasping back to the surface and snagged him by the waist, tugging him out of the way so that the monster’s dive for him impaled it instead on the sword. 

It burst to smoke, same as the others, and Jaskier clung to his shoulders, coughing up water. He paused long enough to be sure the wave was past, and then kicked himself, one arm around Jaskier’s waist and the other still holding his sword at the ready, towards the stairs. 

“You alive?” he asked when Jaskier was standing, barefoot and shivering, on dry land. 

“Yeah.” His voice sounded waterlogged, and caught a bit making its way out of his throat, resulting in another coughing fit. “Thank you.”

Geralt grunted and pushed him towards the door. 

“Wait, my things--” Jaskier turned back to scoop up the clothes that had been tossed to the side. Geralt's own were gathered in one spot, but Jaskier’s had been tossed wildly. He made a mournful sound when he picked up his shoes. “Poor sneakers. You will be missed.”

They dripped their way down the hallway to their rooms, once more side-by-side, and Geralt noticed Jaskier hesitate at his door, looking about to say something. 

He put a stop to that before it could start. “Goodnight, Jaskier.”

Jaskier nodded, looking more put out than the had with a monster after him. “Sleep well, Geralt.”

Geralt dumped his soaking things on the floor of the bathroom and turned on the shower to heat up. He was clean enough from the soak in the pool, but a chill had settled into his bones, and he would take advantage of the hotel’s hot water supply while he could.

He stayed in, baking under the scalding stream, for longer than the fight itself--fights, he supposed.

When he stepped out, he was tired and ready to drop unconscious on the bed for a few hours, so he scowled when he found he could hear the sound of laughter and low murmuring coming from the next room. 

He moved around, cleaning his weapons and his armor and waiting for the noise to stop. 

The talking did.

The fucking was worse.

The familiar sound of Jaskier’s voice, rising in a high note to accompany the rhythmic complaint of a bed, told him another warm body was helping chase the evening’s chill from the singer next door. 

He sighed and reminded his stubborn brain that he knew that. He knew Jaskier fell in bed with anything with a heartbeat and that if he’d really wanted it to be him groaning lowly, loud enough to be heard through the wall even without sensitive Witcher ears, all he’d have had to do was stop saying no. 

He dropped down on his bed, weapons and armor as tended to as they could be, firmly ignoring his body’s response to the sounds and forcing himself to sleep.


	4. Monsters

The inspired words now flowing from Jaskier's lips had him over the moon. His excitement each time he sang something new drew reluctant smiles from Geralt even as he grumbled about the singer's presence on hunts.

He composed with a manic energy and singular focus that had even his manager admitting that the nighttime escapades were worth it, were more beneficial than harmful, so long as the Witcher had it well-handled.

And Geralt did. Have it handled.

Until he didn’t.

Maybe it was hubris.

Maybe it was being stuck in a bus for days with nothing to do but snap at Jaskier. 

Whatever it was, he was a fool.

A roc on it's own was a challenge, but nothing he couldn't manage easily enough, even with a tag-along. 

A breeding pair with a nest full of eggs, on the other hand… 

Geralt took a talon across his chest almost immediately and instincts honed through decades of monster hunting were already telling him it was going to be a long, hard fight. His bag was gone, strap slit by the blow, and ambushed out of nowhere, he hadn’t had time yet to take a potion. It was becoming a brawl, impossible with flighted prey, and he knew with two of them that he would be the one to slow first.

Even landing a deep slash on the smaller one, he was at a disadvantage. The injury to its mate has only made the larger one, the female, furious and deadly. The whole thing was going south fast. 

Shit. 

_Fuck_.

“Jaskier, you need to get out of here,” he called. The singer scoffed--scoffed while he was hiding behind a dumpster from a bird with a beak longer than his leg--and Geralt swore, shouting again for Jaskier to run when he threw himself back into a deadlock with the bird. 

Behind him, he heard the singer scramble for his bag instead, and he growled in frustration. 

"Geralt!" Jaskier called, and Geralt didn't need to look to know what he meant. He stretched a hand out and caught the bottle thrown to him. 

He tugged the cork out with his teeth, trusting that it was the right one, and tossed it back. 

The icy blackness pooled over his eyes, senses heightening, and he snarled, throwing the roc off him and slashing in a whirl of feathers. 

The renewed strength and enhanced reflexes were what he needed to turn the tide. Already the fighting was easier, his quarry seeming slow with each breath that he sped up. Try as the creature might, it didn’t manage to land another blow on him, but he couldn’t seem to strike at it either. 

" _Geralt!_ "

And he knew what that scream meant too. 

He ended the life of the mother roc in a desperate surge and whirled around, scanning the street for Jaskier.

A terrified noise split the air as the male took flight, even as wounded as he was, Jaskier in his grasp, taking them both to the air.

"Fuck!"

Geralt didn't have time to think of a better plan, just flung his hand forward and released Aard at the creature’s massive body. He had to stop it, couldn't let it get Jaskier too high. The force of the sign caught one wing, crumpling it and causing the blood to flow more freely from its already injured side. 

The roc flapped once more, twice, taking them both higher, and released Jaskier as it struggled to stay aloft. 

Geralt dove to catch him, skidding himself across the asphalt of the parking lot, losing skin as he tried to shield the singer's fragile body, rolling them both to take the force of the fall. They tumbled, Geralt folded in tight around him, and finally came to a stop. Bloody and winded, Geralt lay flat on his back with Jaskier shaking on top of him, hand still tangled in the dark curls on the back of his head where he’d been shielding it from hitting the ground.

The roc was retreating, screeching farther away now, and Geralt was gathering himself to go after it when Jaskier dove down to kiss him.

He froze. There wasn't much that could surprise him anymore. It wasn’t even like he didn’t know Jaskier wanted him (he could smell that much, had since they'd met). Battles brought out the most in people--not the best or the worst, just the most--and Jaskier was taut with the same frenetic energy that Geralt had seen him crash from so many times after shows. He smelled like everything good in the world, and Geralt wanted the squirming body above him, _gods_ did he want it. But Jaskier wasn’t himself hopped up on adrenaline and near-death experiences. And there were still monsters to be killed. There would always be monsters to be killed and to take anything Geralt had the temerity to care about. So he lay, pulled in all directions, paralyzed, while Jaskier pressed hot against him.

A noise, movement on the path too low for anyone but a Witcher to hear, made his decision for him. He shoved Jaskier off to face the new threat, snapping frustratedly at him when he tried to pursue the kiss. “ _Jaskier._ ” 

“Shit,” Jaskier breathed, face going white and then red. "Oh my god, I--" He scrambled up and away from him. “I’m sorry. Shit, I’m so fucking sorry--”

Before Geralt could explain, calm him down before his heart exploded out of his chest, someone was stumbling into the parking lot, and they both turned to see Jaskier’s manager red-faced and out of breath, staring at the two of them with wide, angry eyes.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing? I could see you in the fucking air from thee blocks away!”

Jaskier stayed silent for once in his life, not arguing back, but Geralt had no interest in being scolded. He was in pain and he was angry and Jaskier looked upset. He wasn't about to take Eoin's bullshit.

“He’s fine, isn’t he? No one got carried off.” It was a hard argument to make when he was standing there, torn and bloody.

“No thanks to you, Witcher,” Eoin snapped. “You were hired to protect him--" For some reason, Jaskier flinched at the word hired and it only made Geralt feel worse. "But you’ve done nothing but put him in danger. You’re encouraging his recklessness when he's already got enough threats to his life!"

Geralt ground his teeth. He might be inclined to agree with the man, but this was usually when Jaskier piped in and argued that safety was rarely conducive to creativity. 

He didn’t.

Eoin shook his head. “Enough. No more of this. Go home, Witcher. We don’t need your kind of help. We’ll hire someone else to deal with Julian’s monsters.”

Geralt tried to catch Jaskier’s eye. He didn’t want to leave this way, but Jaskier wouldn’t look at him. “Jaskier?”

“Just go, Geralt.” 

He went. 

There were plenty of monsters to distract himself with. Thanks to #TossACoin, he couldn’t throw a stone without hitting a report of some activity or another, and some of it even came attached to a payout. 

When there was money to collect, he always found himself with more when he showed up and the people recognized him. The White Wolf. The one from the song. 

It grated, but he took it. Wasn't getting the cash anywhere else.

Too late, his PI finally got back to him with a whole lot of nothing. He found himself with a full dossier of numbers, reports of digging, and zero leads--not that it was his puzzle to solve anymore. Part of him still wanted to help, but he was trying his level best to pack that part up in a tight little box and shove it in a corner.

Laid out in front of him, all of the evidence said the exes were clean. His contact--who still needed paid, damn it, even if Geralt had gotten jack from the singer's label--had called most of them, and it seemed that Jaskier was still well-liked, all in all, even by those who found him dramatic or annoying. There as a string of bitter rivals but none that merited attention, and beyond that, there wasn't anything to go on. He’d been almost completely out of the public eye before this whole thing had started. 

Geralt put it out of his mind--it was someone else's problem now--and focused on killing his way through the internet's list of monsters.

He made it four days before one of the people he came to collect from froze with that look of recognition in her eyes. 

“You’re him.”

He sighed internally, bracing for the damn song or something equally embarrassing. Instead, he got a ringing slap across the face. 

“How dare you?”

Geralt wasn’t sure what to do. He was more than capable of stopping the girl, who was getting in his space and shouting about heartbreak and betrayal, but he didn’t need violence against a young, human girl earning him another title like Butcher. 

He grabbed her hand when she went to hit him again, just holding on.

She went pale as if just realizing what she'd done.

"Slow down," he said carefully, releasing her. "What are you talking about?"

"You're the one from the song, right?" she said, enough guts to look him in the eye instead of turning tail to run. "Jaskier's Witcher?"

He didn't bristle at that, but only because he wanted her to finish.

"He'd just come back. We were finally hearing him actually sing again, and now he's just gone." She looked near tears, like she was talking about a friend and not a performer on the radio. "You left him for dead."

That pulled a growl out of him. "I didn't."

She glared. "Then why's he cancelled the tour? Why does he look he's dying on Snapchat?"

Geralt felt like he'd lost control of this conversation, if he'd ever had it. He set aside whatever the fuck a Snapchat was and asked, "What do you mean he cancelled the tour?" There was nothing in this world, no threat or bribe, that could have made Jaskier cancel so much as a show, much less the whole tour. 

"I don't know. He just disappeared off the face of the planet again. For weeks, all his tweets were about adventures and monsters and you, and now they’re just depressing, when there's anything at all. It’s all anyone’s talking about. Some people think maybe he's already dead and someone else is running his social media, but I think it looks like you broke his heart, since you're just going to let the monsters get him.”

He wanted to know why anyone was bothering to talk about any of this, how his life had ended up something people gossiped about, but his mind seemed to have caught on the words ‘left him for dead,' churning them over and over.

He hadn't. He'd been sent away. There wasn't anything he could have done in that situation. Jaskier had told him to go. 

But who had they found to replace him? He knew as well as anyone how few Witchers there were left and how unmatched anyone else would be to handle whatever was after Jaskier. 

And he'd left anyway.

Fuck.

“Where is he now?”

She shook her head. “I don't know.”

“Then guess.”

“Someone said it looked like he was Rinde. Cintra has a recording studio there.”

He turned away from her and startled when she grabbed hold of his arm. If this was what it was like to have his reputation reformed, he hated it.

“Please save him, Witcher.”

He pulled himself free of her grip. "I won't let him die."

From everything he’d learned about the musician, he would have expected to find Jaskier locked back in his apartment. His writer's block had trapped him there for months, moping, so he had to assume that a cancelled tour and threat on his life would do the same. 

The girl was right, though, and arriving in Rinde, he caught his trail easily enough. He found the tour bus parked at a hotel, though even a cursory look around confirmed to him that Jaskier hadn't stepped foot there, at least not in a long while. So he went to the studio.

It was the middle of the night, but there was a car in the parking lot with Jaskier's jacket thrown in the backseat, and somewhere in the building, the lights were on. 

The door was locked, but easy to force, and before he'd even stepped inside, the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. It was cold and dark. The halls were silent, all the lights off, and he automatically slipped into the habits of a hunt, footsteps silent and body on alert.

He couldn't place it, but something in the air felt wrong, grated on his senses.

He smelled the stale scent of stuffy rooms and bodies that had been here too long. Mixed through was the scent of pain and alcohol and something else that made his slow, steady heartbeat spike.

The sense of wrongness increased, and he slowed, drawing his sword. 

_“But the story is this,  
She'll destroy with her sweet kiss...”_

Shivers ran down his spine as strains of music reached his ears. 

He followed the sound of Jaskier’s voice, which was rough with emotion and strain.

_“Her sweet kiss,  
But the story is this,  
She'll destroy with her sweet kiss.”_

The words spilled out a cracked door and, stepping through, Geralt found himself in a recording booth, looking down on a little studio.

Jaskier was sitting on the other side of the one-way glass, falling off a barstool, guitar in hand, singing like his life depended on it. 

_“I'm weak, my love, and I am wanting…”_

He looked bad, sleep deprived and shaking and pale. The timer on the screen seemed to indicate that he’d been recording for almost thirty-two hours. It sounded painful and raw and made Geralt’s chest constrict. 

He needed to get to him.

Turning on his heel, he pulled up short, his path to the door blocked by the man just entering the booth behind him.

_“If this is the path I must trudge…”_

Jaskier’s manager looked startled to find someone standing in front of him, surprise shifting to frustration and fear, stinking up the enclosed space, when he saw who it was. It set Geralt’s nerves on edge, but he just sheathed his sword, aware of how he looked standing with it at his side.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Eoin demanded.

_“I welcome my sentence...”_

Geralt didn't have a good excuse to give him, so he didn't say anything.

“I thought I told you we didn’t need your help anymore," Eoin said. "We’re handling it.”

“I don’t like leaving jobs unfinished,” Geralt answered. “And it sure doesn’t sound like you are handling it.”

“Well, we are. There haven’t been any more attacks since you left, and as you can see, Jaskier’s been busy. He’s almost finished, so if you’ll excuse me--”

_“Give to you my penance...”_

Geralt shifted, deeply uncomfortable with… something about what was happening. Maybe it was the way Jaskier’s voice broke behind them or the reek of fear coming off the man in front of him, his eagerness to see Geralt gone. 

“I’ll wait.”

“You’re not wanted here, Witcher.” 

Geralt narrowed his eyes. 

“ _Garrotter, jury_ and--” Jaskier’s voice cut off with a yelp. 

Geralt’s eyes snapped to him in time to see him fall off his stool in his attempt to get away from the winged creature clawing its way through the far door. 

The room stank of fear, but it had long before any sign of a monster. 

The entire time Eoin had been trying to get Geralt to leave. 

Goddamn it, he was an idiot. 

Not _jealousy._ Greed. 

Jaskier was in danger because scandal made more money than a singer who couldn’t write. Even better if he left behind one last album, recorded in one shot the day he died.

“Fuck.” 

That bastard.

He didn’t have time to confirm his suspicions. Jaskier was pressed into a corner, only his guitar between him and the hive queen who’d now broken the door frame wide enough to climb in after him. Drawing both swords, he pinned Eoin to the wall with steel through his gut. If he was innocent, they could probably save him with magic. If not, it would be a suitably painful death. 

Without pausing, he spun, driving a heel into the glass separating the two rooms, spiderwebbing cracks across the glass such that it shattered easily when he crashed, shoulder first, through it. 

Jaskier was barely holding off the queen, his guitar between her sharp pinsers. 

Geralt forced himself between the two bodies, shoving her back and raking a smoking furrow up the queen’s side with his silver sword to force her to turn her attention away from the musician in her grasp.

Fighting in tight quarters, with Jaskier so close on his heels, was a challenge. She was more intelligent than the foot soldiers he’d been fighting up to that point, still just a pest, but more than he wanted to deal with while Jaskier was on the floor to be trampled.

She screamed at another blow, and he might even have felt bad for the moment when he felt whatever had summoned her there snap and her attention turn from pursuit to retreat--right as the rattling breaths from the other room stopped. He must have hit something more vital in the man's chest than he thought. Humans were so damn fragile. 

He chopped her head from her shoulders, dissipating her into smoke, and sheathed his sword before rounding on Jaskier.

“Geralt?” 

He dropped down to crouch in front of the singer, who was staring at him with eyes blown wide and a look of confusion on his face. 

“Yeah, Jaskier. It’s me. You alive?”

Jaskier nodded, hand pressing to his mouth. “What’s happening?” he asked between his fingers.

“You’re safe,” he answered, reaching out and hesitating to touch. Jaskier was shaking. He smelled off, like chemicals, and his eyes weren’t coming into focus on Geralt’s face. “Jaskier. Hey, look at me.” 

Jaskier closed his eyes. 

“It’s over. It was Eoin,” he said, certain of it now, sure of what he’d felt when the man's life ended and the connection severed. “It’s over.”

“Eoin?” He frowned and looked up at Geralt. “No, he wouldn’t--he was helping me.”

“Helping you work yourself to death?” 

“To death? No. I just needed--he kept asking for a ballad. Said he just needed a ballad.”

Geralt grunted. “When was the last time you slept?”

“Dunno. What time is it?”

“Two in the morning,” he answered, reaching out to thumb under Jaskier’s eye. “Are you on something?”

“What? No. I mean. _No._ ” He closed his eyes again, breath fleeing in a huff. “Everything’s spinning.”

Geralt pushed to his feet, walking two steps back to where Jaskier had been singing. Where a little line of paper cups testified to how long Jaskier had been awake. They smelled… strange. Bitter. Drugged. His eyes slid to the dead man in the other room, wishing he’d survived long enough to kill with his own two hands. 

“He bring you these?” 

“What? Yes. Huh. What? How long have I been here?”

“Timer says thirty two hours.”

Jaskier choked on a surprised laugh. “I feel like garbage.”

“I’m taking you home.”

“Buy me dinner first, geez.”

“Your home, Jaskier. Who should I call?”

He laughed, high and hysterical. “Ten minutes ago, I would have said Eoin. And we’re about as far from my home as it’s possible to get.”

Geralt growled and stepped back to him. “Can you stand?”

“I’m having a panic attack. I’m not an _invalid,_ ” he answered, nearly immediately disproving himself when he got to his feet and Geralt had to catch him before he fell. 

Geralt placed himself between the singer and the other room, the body of someone he’d once cared about, but Jaskier was too out of it to see anything around him, fully delirious by the time they were out into the hall. Geralt found a chair to set him in and then traced his steps back to the sound booth. 

He tugged his sword free of the man’s chest, wiping it clean and sheathing it, and rifled through his pockets until he found a set of keys. 

Jaskier looked up at him, head lolling back against the wall, when he returned. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to see if you’d gotten yourself killed.”

A slow grin spread on his tired face. “You were worried about me.” 

“Get up.”

Jaskier was chattering and shaking by the time Geralt got him into the car. He'd seen the adrenaline crash a dozen times now, after a monster or a beautiful stranger or after a good show. This was just a hundred times worse. His hands didn't work on his seat belt. His eyes weren't looking at anything. Most terrifyingly, he'd gone completely silent. Geralt didn’t know what to fucking do with him. He could take him to a hotel, try to get him to sleep, but that sounded miserable and brought a little bubble of panic up in his chest at the thought of trying to handle this on his own. What Jaskier needed now was familiarity. Someone who could comfort him.

Rinde… he’d just seen it somewhere. Somewhere not in his mad dash to find the singer. 

On a list. Attached to a phone number. 

Geralt shut the door on Jaskier and dug the brick of a phone he carried out of his pocket, hoping it had enough charge for the call.

“Countess?” he grunted when a feminine voice muttered sleepily on the other end. “Sorry to wake you. I have someone who needs you.”

Katerina de Stael was wrapped in a robe, hair up in a tight knot on her head, when she opened the door. 

Jaskier had passed out somewhere on the drive and hadn’t woken when they arrived or when Geralt had scooped him out if the car. 

"Bring him here," she said, gesturing for Geralt to follow. The room they entered smelled like rose perfume, and the silky sheets were warm when he laid Jaskier in them. 

She pulled the blankets gently up over him and brushed back his hair before nodding for Geralt to follow out into the living room. She poured him a glass of red wine without asking and gestured for him to sit. 

"So you're Jaskier's Witcher."

Geralt shifted uncomfortably. "People keep saying that, yeah."

"Are you trying to tell me it's not true?" She tilted her head in a shrewd way. "I have ears, and surely you do too."

"I'm not his anything."

"Hmm." 

They sat in silence for several long moments, and he had to wonder how she'd ever fit with Jaskier. 

"So what happened to him?" She ran her fingers round and round the rim of her wine glass. "You didn't give me much information on the phone."

"His manager tried to kill him. I got there in time."

"Then I owe you a debt of thanks. "

He shook his head. "You don't owe me anything for saving his life."

"Oh? I thought he wasn't anything to you, Witcher."

"I said I wasn't anything to him."

"I see." She didn't try to argue with him, just sipped her wine and listened as Jaskier's breathing evened out into a peaceful sleep. Eventually, she floated to her feet and retrieved a blanket and a pillow from the closet, seting them next to him on the couch. "Get some rest. You look nearly as rough as he does."

And then she vanished into the bedroom, closing the door with a firm click behind her. 

Geralt woke from a fitful sleep to the sound of low, murmuring voices. 

He could hear the sweet love-drunk tone of Jaskier's voice. The singer always wore his heart on his sleeve, and after only a month of knowing him, Geralt got the feeling that he loved nearly every person he met, if just a little bit. What really struck him was the fond, gentle way Katerina spoke with him in return. When she slipped out a few minutes later, he could see Jaskier watching from the pillows, eyes following her adoringly. She might as well have hung the moon. 

The door closed, blocking his line of sight, and she jumped a little when she saw him still on there couch, the affectionate, contented smile falling from her lips.

"He's up," she said, pointlessly, as though he could have possibly missed it, and continued her path to the kitchen. "I'm making tea. You should go in and see him." Her expression already seemed more subdued, though. 

He didn't have a chance to respond before she vanished from sight. 

Should he? 

He wasn't so sure. After everything that had happened, Jaskier deserved to be happy. 

_I am weak, love, and I am wanting._

He deserved someone who didn't make him sound like _that._

Katerina didn't share, he remembered, and he didn't honestly know how well he could share either. He thought about the open affection he'd heard through the door just moments before, and made up his mind. 

Jaskier's new album was wildly successful, despite his continued disappearance from the public eye. 

Geralt played it once the whole way through, then shoved the disc into the back of a drawer and resolved not to listen to the radio for a few years so that he would never have to hear it again. It was painful and raw and personal, and the recording of _Her Sweet Kiss_ , only lightly edited, was almost certainly the one he'd heard Jaskier singing thirty hours into a breakdown and moving only on the stream of heartbreak and illegal stimulants. 

It hurt and, for all that it was out there in the world, being listened to by thousands of people a day, it felt like a violation of his privacy to hear the words spoken about but not for him. 

He'd gotten a few voicemails from Katerina after he vanished from her living room without a word. He deleted them without listening and eventually she'd let him be. All he had was the hope that having someone he loved to tend to his recovery was serving Jaskier well. 

Maybe he was a bastard for not being that person himself. He'd heard the love confession--it ran for almost ninety minutes--but all he could think about was a monster bearing down on him and Katerina's fond smile. He thought of the list of people Jaskier had been in love with in the last five years, and tried to tell himself that he was okay with being just another entry.

A heavy rain was pouring outside--and inside, since Geralt never had gotten the roof fixed in this place, but it was fine. He wasn’t sleeping, so he could keep emptying the bucket. 

That plan was interrupted by a familiar pounding on the door.

Too familiar to be true. 

He tugged the door open, and there Jaskier stood, soaked to the bone and already talking. 

“I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't be here. I just had to. I had to actually tell you I love you to your face. I couldn't just leave it like this." His teeth were chattering, and his hair stuck to his forehead. "I mean, you know I love you, of course you do, how could you not? Everyone fucking knows I love you. And so obviously that means that you don’t love me, because you never came back, and you didn’t say goodbye, and so it’s stupid for me to be standing here pulling some grand romantic gesture and--wait.” Jaskier frowned past him at the cramped space. "Hold on, you live like this?"

"My house is fine, Jaskier."

"There's a big hole in the roof!"

"I killed your boss before he could pay me."

"Come live with me," he blurted out before biting down on his tongue in a way that seemed painful. He continued, "Fuck, that sounded really desperate. It's just... I have an apartment. A big apartment that is super empty and feels very scary right now, and I just can't be alone there again." He wasn't even breathing as the words tumbled out, cheeks flushed with embarrassment and oxygen deprivation. "Anyway, like I was just saying, I'm very much in love with you and would really rather you not be living in squalor. Even if you don't want to sleep with me, please let me at least help pay you back for saving my life."

"You don't owe me anything for saving your life. No one owes me anything for saving your life."

"I do, though. Regardless of what people say, I really don't want to die--"

“And who said I don’t want to sleep with you?"

Jaskier gaped at him, finally silent.

“Come in out of the rain, idiot. I didn't save your life so you could catch your death in the cold."

It took a tug to pull him into the building, and his skin was icy under Geralt's fingers.

He managed to push him into the bathroom and turn on the water before Jaskier finally got his words back.

"Is this really happening? Did I pass out from the cold and start hallucinating?"

"You might still," he pointed out. "But no."

"Because it sounded like you just said you wanted to sleep with me." 

Geralt snorted and tugged on the soaked jacket wrapped around Jaskier's shaking shoulders. 

"Like, I knew you didn't hate me--"

"Oh?" he asked, spinning Jaskier around to start unbuttoning his shirt. "You knew that, did you?"

"You came back for me."

"Mm."

"Oh my god," Jaskier breathed when Geralt stripped his shirt off him. 

"You're freezing, Jaskier. Take off your pants and get in the water."

Geralt turned, intending to give him some privacy, since he hadn’t stopped gaping and expressed interest in the proceedings, but Jaskier yelped, “wait,” and grabbed his hand. “Wait, stay.” He pulled him back, tangling their fingers together. “Please stay.”

Geralt’s movement back to him didn’t stop until their lips were pressed together, the last of his will to push Jaskier away gone. Jaskier still held onto him like he was going to disappear, so Geralt crowded him back against the tub. 

"Please," Jaskier pleaded between kisses. "Please, don't do this if it's not real."

Geralt unbuttoned his pants and pushed. “If you want it to be.”

“Have you been listening at all?” Jaskier stripped off the damp jeans and fell back into the tub, hissing a bit at the sting of the hot water, but already grabbing for Geralt. “I can think of other things to help warm me up.”

Geralt snorted and allowed Jaskier's frozen fingers to fumble a few times on his clothes before assisting him.

The tub was the only nice thing in the entire apartment. He’d saved the money from a hunt that could have bought him somewhere else and instead bought a deep, wide tub that could fit him entirely. Apparently, it could fit two in a pinch, so long as they were locked together the way he and Jaskier were. 

There was no hiding either of their interest as Geralt straddled the his legs and cupped his face in his hands. Geralt was done saying no anyway. 

“I listened,” he answered, so late that Jaskier looked confused. “I listen to everything you say.”

“Oh,” Jaskier breathed, word turning into a gasp when Geralt trailed kisses down to his neck, roughing a mark under the edge of his jaw with his teeth. 

“Even the annoying things.”

"Hey!" Jaskier objected, and then moaned.

"Mm. I missed hearing you."

Jaskier shivered underneath him and, steam rising around them, this time it had nothing to do with the cold. His hips pressed up against Geralt’s, seeking touch, while his fingers slid over the wet skin of his sides. “Believe it or not, this isn’t at all what I was expecting when I came here,” Jaskier panted, and Geralt laughed against his skin, rolling his hips down so that they ground against each other and Jaskier let out a very satisfying moan. 

Geralt slid a hand between then as he kissed his way across every inch of Jaskier's skin, chasing the icy cold away.

It was, perhaps, a testament to their eagerness that the water was still warm by the time they’d finished, no longer scalding but still pleasant enough to wash away come and sweat, and not to freeze in drips from them as Geralt grabbed the one towel and dried off first Jaskier and then himself. 

“So, are you coming home with me?” Jaskier asked, tracing shapes on Geralt’s chest and watching the sun peaking up over the horizon through the dirty window. 

“What about Katerina?”

“What about Katerina?” Jaskier sat up to look at his face. “I did tell you she broke up with me, right? Months ago, she broke up with me. We still care about each other, yeah, but we’re not together.”

Geralt hummed and ran a hand down Jaskier’s neck, which was marked and speckled with love bites.

“I love her,” Jaskier confessed, leaning into the touch. “But I love a lot of people. It’s not actually a problem unless you mind.” He looked up at Geralt worriedly. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“I don’t mind.”

“Okay, then,” he said softly. A grin split his face. “Great. Grab your things.”

Apparently burning with the desire to leave right that moment, Jaskier scrambled up, poking at his damp clothes and gratefully accepting the sweats that Geralt threw at him. Geralt snagged the bag from beside the mattress on the floor. He never really bothered to unpack it, and for once he was grateful for the fact. The few keepsakes he had stuffed in a drawer fit easily on top and his armor was already stacked by the door.

Jaskier frowned at him. “That's seriously all your things? Okay, Okay.” He helped pick up Geralt’s armor and stepped out the door only to turn back and say, “Do you have a car? Because I walked here.”

Of course he had.

“It’s fine. I’ll drive.”

He led Jaskier to Roach, ignoring his surprised and excited rambling as he loaded their things into the saddlebags and backed her out of the covered spot. He was still talking when Geralt dismounted to put the helmet on Jaskier’s head, only shutting up when Geralt pulled it down and buckled it under his chin. 

Something in Geralt’s chest warmed in satisfaction seeing him wearing his clothes and his helmet. 

“Have you ridden before?” 

Jaskier shook his head. 

“Hold onto me and don’t freak out.”

“Well, I can promise the first one.”

True to his word, Jaskier wrapped his arms around Geralt, fingers burying in Geralt’s shirt as firmly as he’d buried himself in his heart, and never let go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this chapter got away from me, ha. Finally finished!
> 
> Thank you for all the lovely notes, you guys! This has been so much fun to write. 
> 
> More in this universe is in the works.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm editing as fast as my little fingers can take me! This fic is entirely written (I don't trust myself with WIPs, yo) and should be up by the end of the week.


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